A Steampunky Bachelorette Party

      

                    

My friend is getting married in July, and I'm one of the bridesmaids, so of course my co-bridesmaid and I started planning the bachelorette party immediately. After some consideration, we decided to go with a steampunk theme. 

                              

The program featured running away to the circus, brunch and a guided tour of the botanical gardens,  a steampunk photoshoot, a croquet tournament, and dinner and the sauna at my parents' summer house. 

For party favours we made "the language of flowers" cards (picture above) and another set with "Fan Flirtations" on the other side. 

                

                                    I got all the supplies for these at Presento. 

                

For croquet, we split up into two teams. Here are the prizes for the winners. The lollipops and moustache paper clips are from Tiger. 

                

The favour bags and paper plates etc. are from the juhlahumua webshop, which had awesome stuff. 

                                          Here are some props we used for the photoshoot:

For the food we did some themed snacks and drinks before the sauna, then some barbecue for dinner, and themed desserts. 

Here's some pictures of the food:

                            

                              

                                    Kraken rum + Curiosity Cola = The Curious Kraken. 

                              

                              

                               

The inspiration for the gear cookies and chocolate cakes came from the Steampunk Tea Party cookbook.

                                         This is how I made the decorations for the cakes: 

                                

The putty is for making silicone moulds. You mix the two colours, then press any object you want a mould of into the stuff , wait twenty minutes, remove the object, and then let the mould dry overnight. If you want to try making your own moulds, make sure the putty you're using is food safe. 

               

              

 I also got a chance to try my gear cookie cutter. For filled cookies, you can make the base without pressing on the round part of the cutter, and the top part with the cutout.  I ordered it from here. 

                             

                        

                                      I also made this mini top hat for the bride-to-be.

                          

Here are some of the books we read from for the evening's entertainment. They're all from Salakirjat. From the top left, we have The Book of Kissing, Advice for Making Yourself Beautiful, Woman, and How to Conquer Her: The Memoirs of A Gentleman, and How to Become a Bride in Fourteen Days.

I had a great time, and I hope everybody else did, too.  

                        

DIY: Victorian Butterflies

                           

Project time! This is the butterfly kit I got at the craft fair a while ago, and I wanted something new to put in my glass display dome, so I decided to give it a go. 

                       

Making the butterflies wasn't too hard, just a bit fiddly. You need small, sharp scissors and a lot of patience. The result is neater if you bend the sticker and peel the antennae off the craft paper and just cut along the wings. (This was in the instructions, so of course I ignored it at first. Cause I'm a REBEL! So, big surprise, the instructions actually are there for a reason.) The craft paper is some sort of thin, plasticky material, so you can actually do this without tearing the sticker.

                      

                     They turned out just like on they look on the box. Very pretty.

                     

 That's the final product, improvised with bits and bobs I had lying around the house. I might go out and find a knobbly bit of wood and some moss to make it even prettier, but this will do for now.

Oh, and I found a webshop that sells the kits, if anyone wants to give it a go. They're just 4.60 euros, so pretty affordable. I used less than a fourth of the kit for this project, so you get lots of butterflies from one package. Remember to get silver wire, too, if you want to use it. At least my kit didn't have it included. (The site doesn't say if they ship outside of Finland, but it doesn't hurt to ask.)

DIY: Jewelry From Dollhouse Furniture

There's plenty of DIY potential in dollhouse furniture if you like kitsch and know what to look for. All you need are earring hooks, adjustable ring bases, and a few pairs of jewelry-making pliers. And superglue. You should always have superglue in the house.

These were a cinch to make: I just attached the hooks to the loops on the tray.

Here are a few rings I got at a design market a few years ago. These would be easy to DIY, too. I think they're just glued on. These are a bit Lolita-y, but I like that. 

 I saw these frames at a craft store and just had to make them into earrings. I'd love to swap the pictures for something more sci-fi, but the darn things don't open. Well, that guy looks a bit like Lovecraft, right?